1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile robot for detecting and repairing damages of a hull, and more specifically, to a mobile robot for detecting and repairing damaged or defective portions of a hull which can be used to repair the hull such as in a ship, offshore structure, plant, or the like in case of an accident.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, robots are used to manufacture and repair a bull in a shipbuilding field, and specifically, can be effectively used at a region difficult to access, or a place which may cause accidents at high altitude locations.
For example, in a conventional working method targeting a ship hull for detecting breakages or damages generated on the ship hull and repairing the same, men perform work while being hung on a side of the hull by using ropes, ladders, tower wagons, or the like. Thereby, work efficiency may be reduced, and may cause personal damage due to an accident.
In particular, mobile robots used for detecting and repairing damages of the hull in the art include a power supply and driving unit integrally formed with each other, and thereby energy efficiency may be decreased due to an increase in weights.
Further, there are robots capable of moving along the side of a hull disclosed in patent documents as a background of the invention. However, since these robots are used only in high altitude works such as cleaning, painting, inspection, or the like, there is a limitation on applications for performing detection and repairing damages generated on the side of the hull by accidents, etc., and carrying out works such as rescue and relief, etc. on behalf of rescue workers in case of an accident.
In addition, since the conventional robots used in the shipbuilding field have a main controller or an auxiliary controller located on an outside of a hull away from the robots, power may not be stably supplied to the robot side due to a limitation as described below. That is, when connecting cables such as communication lines or power lines between the main controller and the robots, movability of the robot is significantly limited due to a limited length of the cables or large weight thereof.
Further, since the conventional robots used in the shipbuilding field may move with specific equipment mounted thereon, they can execute only specified missions corresponding to the specific equipment, and thereby availability of the robot may be reduced.
Furthermore, the conventional robots used in the shipbuilding field employ a manual control system controlled by the main controller or the auxiliary controller, it is difficult to automatically search a destination and move thereto.
Furthermore, when the conventional robots used in the shipbuilding field are provided with wheels, they are designed so as to move on only relatively flat and smooth surfaces, and in order to fix the body of robot on a curved surface such as a typical ship hull by using electromagnets, it is not possible to deform the body of the robot so as to face and contact the electromagnets corresponding to the curved surface. Thereby, the adhesive force of electromagnets to the curved surface may be decreased.
For example, Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0533664 (Registered on Nov. 29, 2005) discloses a mobile robot capable of moving on a surface while being adhered thereto, and Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0776062 (Registered on Nov. 6, 2007) discloses a robot for high altitude works. However, these patents still entail the above-described problems.